


Sasha, Sasha (Or, 5 Scientists That SHIELD stole from SI and One Who Wouldn't Budge)

by Rowantreeisme



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Aliens, Dubious Science, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Light Angst, Linguistics, Not Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-30 02:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10867392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rowantreeisme/pseuds/Rowantreeisme
Summary: SHIELD has a hard enough time trying to deal with their own science division, let alone dealing with the ones that go nuts and try to take over the world in the most unconventional ways possible. Tony would be happy to take some of the trigger-happy scientists off their hands and into SI R&D. Unfortunately, SHIELD doesn't like to share.





	1. Polka-Dot

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter, whoop whoop! I've got most of them written, so this'll probably not take me long to finish. Also, first 5+1 fic! Hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony was in the air, shooting at the latest threat to the city/world, which happened to be, of all goddamn things, a swarm of ladybugs the size of fucking yachts. Seriously. They weren't particularly destructive, or aggressive, mostly content to just buzz around, searching for flowers, but their size was somewhat of an issue when they crashed into buildings, which they tended to do. A lot.

After the Avengers separated, it only took a month before they had to be un-separated to stop an army of robots from destroying the city. After that, it was agreed that it would be best for them all to stay in one place so that no one (Tony) had to haul anyone else piggy-back style (Steve) across 4 states because he (Steve) was on a road trip when the call came, and that was how Tony somehow ended up with a house full of superheroes.

Tony was in the air, shooting at the latest threat to the city/world, which happened to be, of all goddamn things, a swarm of ladybugs the size of fucking yachts. Seriously. They weren't particularly destructive, or aggressive, mostly content to just buzz around, searching for flowers, but their size was somewhat of an issue when they crashed into buildings, which they tended to do. A lot.

Tony, Thor, and Clint were the only ones actually doing any damage to the bugs, while Steve and Natasha coordinated with SHIELD and the NYPD to make sure the downed bugs didn't hit anything on the ground, and Bruce was where he usually was when the Hulk wasn't needed, helping the SHIELD medics patch unlucky civilians up, even though he kept insisting that he “wasn't that kind of doctor”, and sciencing the shit out of the corpses.

Honestly, it was kinda boring. They weren't even that hard to take down, the only real challenge was making sure they didn't land on anything important. Clint, from the top of the Tower, loosed an arrow at Steve’s direction, hitting one of the ladybugs square through the head. Tony watched as it fell, landing neatly in the middle of a cleared street, where it was promptly swarmed by SHIELD agents.

Tony swerved, slightly scorching a bug that had gotten too close for comfort to a populated building, before shooting a missile in its face and letting it drop to the street below. He flew back around, herding a group of bugs back to the evacuated area of the city before they could get too far. The majority of them seemed to want to head straight to Central Park, which made sense, but the local police and SHIELD hadn't finished evacuating it.

Tony sighed, and continued herding ladybugs, exchanging a nod with Thor, who was wrangling his own group. Thor, at least, seemed to be having a good time.

“Iron Man, Thor, SHIELD’s given us the all-clear to start herding them to Central Park. Iron man, pick up Hawkeye and give him a good vantage point.” Steve said over the comms, and Tony could see him in the middle of the street, head craned up to spot the rest of the team.

Tony stopped herding, letting the bugs continue their previous course towards the park. “Sure thing, Cap. Bird-brain, incoming.” He said, swerving around to Clint’s spot on the roof before he was shooting up into the sky, Clint clinging to him like a limpet. Tony smirked as Clint swore, making an intentionally sharp bank to deposit him on a rooftop overlooking the park.

Clint flipped him off as he steadied himself. “Fuck you, Stark. I know you do that on purpose.” He groused, already notching another arrow.

Tony laughed. “I thought you liked flying, birdie.” He said, shooting off further into the park.

Tony could feel the glare in Clint’s voice when he spoke “I _do_. You, however, fly like an absolute goddamn maniac. I have no idea how you haven't crashed yet.” Clint retorted, sending an arrow flying past the faceplate.

Steve cut off their soon-to-be snark-fest. “Hawkeye, Iron man, cut the chatter.” The words were stern, but the tone was more fond than anything else. “Widow, you’re with me. Banner, any luck on figuring out why this happened?” Steve asked.

Bruce sighed. “Not so far. There’s some toxin readings that are a little bit off, but there’s not enough to cause any real damage. I’m going to have to do an analysis back at the Tower to get anything conclusive.”

Steve was jogging down the streets as Tony flew overhead, a junior agent following him at a sprint, carrying a bag full of arrows to give back to Clint. Arrow retrieval, the worst job you could have as a junior agent. Tony wondered what they’d done to piss off Coulson. Despite the speed, Steve didn't even sound winded. “Too bad. Make sure you get enough samples before SHIELD cleans up.”

Tony groaned. “Please at least tell me it’s not fucking magic again. I do not need giant magic insect guts in my tower. We literally just got the bio-lab cleaned up from last week. I do not need this.” He complained, spinning through the air to where Thor was being much less conservative with his lighting than earlier, now that they didn't have to plan where each bug landed. “Bruce, I thought you were on my side on this. You are a physicist, you do not need massive goddamn invertebrate remains.” His tone was light and teasing as he blasted 3 ladybugs at once, and they landed in a neat stack on the grass. “Three-in-one, suck it Barton!”

He could hear Bruce rolling his eyes when he replied, cutting off Clint’s retort. “Your tower will stay magic-free, at least this time. The scanners you built seem to be working fairly well, and they’re not picking up anything.” Before Tony could reply, he continued. “Unfortunately, you will have to deal with insect corpses in the bio-labs.”

Tony sighed theatrically and shot another ladybug. Some of them had landed in the park, and Steve and Natasha are taking care of them. “Fine. I call dibs on a wing, though. And a section of its shell.”

Bruce chuckled a bit, before replying, completely deadpan. “Yay, giant mutant ladybug corpses. It must be my birthday.” Tony had to laugh at that, because underneath his shy nerd exterior, Bruce was pretty damn funny.

Tony shot into the sky, looking down on the city, where there was still 50-odd ladybugs flying around. He dived to herd a trio that had flown away from the main mass, towards a smaller park. He left them to Thor, who was laughing and swinging Mjolnir around like he was having the best time of his life, which, judging by his tales of what constituted as “fun” in Asgard, he might have been.

Thor’s booming voice echoed in his helmet when Tony swung back around with another group of ladybugs. SHIELD had swarmed the area, and Tony could see Coulson directing the ‘disassembly’ of the ladybugs with his usual terrifying competence. “This is great fun! It is very much like the great hunts  in Asgard!” Thor boomed, and fried 6 ladybugs with lightning. Tony was _so glad_ the suit filtered out smells.

Flying low to the streets, Tony shot a ladybug that had landed, slotted neatly between two apartments, and pinged the SHIELD comms to tell them where to pick it up. “Speaking of birthdays, I know everyones but Nat and Legolas. What gives? How am I supposed to throw awesome birthday parties if I don’t know when they are?”

Natasha cut off Clint’s “Fuck yes, party time” quickly. “Stark, I have been to one of your birthday parties. As always, your definition of “party” contains far more structural damage than anyone would like, and I have absolutely no interest in being part of another.” Her voice was dry, but in that humorous way she had.

Tony gasped, feigning shock and hurt. “I am wounded. My parties are the bomb. Also, rude, I thought we agreed never to bring that up ever again. And honestly, it wasn't that bad.”

Tony could hear Natasha rolling her eyes. “You put holes in three floors, brought down two load-bearing walls, blew up a fireplace, shattered all the windows on two floors, let your friend take a suit, and traumatised most of the guests. And, I never agreed to anything.”

Tony winced and cut off Steve’s worried-sounded questions. “Ok, ok, that might have been pretty bad. But still, I think I get a pass on that one due to extenuating circumstances, and I’m offended that you think my buildings can’t handle a couple dents. Plus, some of the structural damage was pretty useful for the particle accelerator.” He said, defensively, and continued. “Anyways, when did you say your birthdays were again?”

He was momentarily distracted from his question after an enthusiastic “Jan 7th” from Clint. As sped off, chasing one of the bugs that seemed determined to get to Staten Island, and was not swayed from its goal by repulsor burns.

“Bruce, how bad would it be if I dropped one of them in the harbour?” He asked, attempting to physically push the ladybug back to Manhattan, but its mass made that near impossible.

Bruce sighed. “I would really rather you don’t do that. I still don’t know what made them this big, and if that effect can be ingested…” He trailed off, and Tony groaned. No one had liked dealing with the giant squid.

Well, there was only really one option. He couldn't push it, and he couldn't kill it. 

He flew up above it, and landed on its head, grabbing its antennae. The ladybug bucked, swerving angrily to try to shake him off. The turbulence off its wings almost knocked him off, but he managed to stay on and yanked its antennae to the right. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the bug swerved around, heading back to the city. Tony whooped, and yanked both antennae up, flying higher so as not to hit any buildings.

As he flew towards central park, he noticed that the other stray ladybugs were turning to follow him instead, and laughed. “Thor, incoming with 12. I am riding the one at the front, If you zap me again I will order no-name brand pop tarts for a month.”

He could hear the other’s confused questions and Thor’s booming acknowledgement. He cleared the last line of buildings before the park, and Clint burst out laughing.

“Hey, don’t knock Dutchess. This ride is _sweet_.” Tony said, ducking slightly as Thor roasted his loyal followers. Clint just laughed harder.

“You _named_ it?! Tony, oh my god!” Clint exclaimed, in between bursts of laughter. He could hear Steve’s unbelieving chuckles, and Natasha’s snorts as she tried to hold in her laughter as well. He steered Dutchess down and around, saluting Steve as he passed. Steve shook his head, grinning.

Tony flew back over the city, collecting a small following of ladybugs as he went. “Of course I named her. Dutchess is a very pretty lady.” He said, trying to sound offended, but he broke out laughing, so the effect was ruined.

He spotted a camera flash out of the corner of his eyes and flashed a peace sign in that direction before continuing on his circuit of the city. “Hey, Widow. I don’t think I got an answer yet?” He asked, and as he flew over the park he saw Natasha decapitate a ladybug with a good deal more force than strictly necessary.

“I don’t know.” The reply was nonchalant, the tone purposely distracting from the contents of the words.

Tony groaned. “Please tell me your first birthday party experience was not at mine.” He joked, because any other response would involve emotions and the one thing Natasha wouldn't want was pity.

Natasha chuckled humorlessly. “Fortunately, no, it was not. I will say that yours was probably the most interesting. All the others were poorly-veiled excuses for rich elitists to throw a party, and very useful for gathering intel.”

Tony scoffed. “I have been to those types of parties. They are an insult to the name.”

Steve made a noise as if he was going to say something, but Coulson’s voice cut in over the comms. “There’s another swarm appearing in Queens. Kissena Park and the neighbouring golf course are being cleared for you to put them down in. Stark, take your bug and make sure they don’t cause any more trouble than necessary.”

The team groaned, but grudgingly acknowledged Coulson, because it was Saturday. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday and they were going to spend the whole damn day herding ladybugs. With a sigh, Tony steered Dutchess around and headed for Queens.

\---

It was nearly sundown before the team was finally able to go home.

They dispersed when they got back to the tower, just long enough to shower and change, and as they wandered back into the common room, JARVIS helpfully put on a show and ordered pizza.

All of them flopped onto the couch, Clint perching on the armrests of Bruce’s chair and the couch, Tony leaning against the armrest Clint was sitting on, legs sprawled out on Steve. Natasha was curled up in the corner on Steve’s other side, and Thor had taken up his usual spot, leaning on the couch from the floor.

All in all, it was one of the best missions they had ever had. The worst of the damages were some broken windows, a slightly dented car, and a cross missing from the top of a church. It had just taken so goddamn _long_.

It was tedious, too. Whenever they had finished with one swarm, another would appear somewhere else, and both the Avengers and SHIELD would have to move before they dispersed. Tony had considered getting JARVIS to fly another armour out so the team would be less uneven if they had to split, but the public would want to know who was flying it, and he didn't really want anyone to know he had a fully fledged AI.

Really, Tony shouldn't be complaining. SHIELD and the local police had worked beautifully together, and aside from the one idiot who tried to ride one of the ladybugs like Tony had, the general population evacuated any affected areas with stunning amounts of speed and grace. Steve had said as much at the small press conference they held at the end.

Hell, they even caught the rogue entomologist behind it all with pretty much no fuss. Turns out, the woman had only wanted to provide a natural form of pesticide, in the form of giant fuck-off ladybugs. The logic was mostly sound - nearly 90% of the invasions since the chitauri were completely or mostly insectoid - but really not good in practice.

Either way, she had honestly been trying to help and had both the brains and the resources to actually try to do it. Coulson had caught up with her easily enough, and she surrendered readily when he explained that no, this had not helped.

She had even handed over all of her research without prompting, and even though Tony was definitely not a biology person, he had to admit that her work was brilliant. This wasn't some half-assed serum mixed up in someone’s basement, she had done all the math beforehand, and made the shrinker serum first, before testing the final product in increments, studiously noting down anything that happened.

The only thing he was pissed about was that SHIELD had snapped her up too quickly for him to employ/kidnap her for S.I’s budding bio sector. As the arresters, however, they got first dibs on job offers for mad scientists, which happened more than you might think.

The team had gone to see her after she was situated in one of SHIELD’s nicer holding cell, to which she had gone with no complaints.

Natasha had determined that she had genuinely meant no harm after a short interrogation session, which was mostly just her answering any and all questions Natasha asked her without hesitation.

She was currently using the screen in her room to Skype with the entirety of SHIELD’s biochem division, and Bruce, who were both checking her work to make sure there weren't any surprises to be had, and bouncing other ideas around. Someone had gotten her a whiteboard and some markers, after determining that she wasn't a danger and giving her those would not result in a jailbreak (people had done a lot worse with a lot less), and it was covered in math and diagrams that were both fascinating for their complexity, and contained some stunning leaps of logic.

When pizza arrived and Bruce went to get it from the lobby, since he was the only one who had not been herding/killing ladybugs all day, Tony took control of the tablet, and opened another window to work on an idea he had had earlier in the day, closing the Skype window before he started.

The tablet pinged with a new message and Tony grinned. Pepper had forwarded him an image from the roundup, (it felt weird to call it a battle), and there he was, sitting on top of a ladybug, flying through the city streets. He looked ridiculous, especially with the peace sign he was holding up, but he had to admit that the picture was pretty damn good. The gold of the suit stood out from the black head of the bug, and the red was just different enough to stand out against the ladybug’s shell, which arced up behind him, making it look like he was the one with wings. The white glow from the reactor was dead centre in the photograph, and the blur from the wings gave the background skyline a fuzzy effect.

Clint snorted, looking over Tony’s shoulder at the picture. Tony smacked him in the face with a pillow, and Clint toppled into Bruce’s chair, still laughing. While Tony was distracted trying to beat Clint to death with a throw pillow, Steve grabbed the tablet out of his lap and held it up so Natasha could see.

Tony looked over when he heard Natasha snort. Steve was bending over slightly to show the picture of the tablet to Thor, who was otherwise completely engrossed with the show he was watching.

He glared at Steve. Steve just smiled at him, and shrugged. “It’s a good picture.”

Tony snatched back the tablet just as the elevator opened with Bruce inside, somehow managing to carry 8 pizza boxes at once. Clint scrambled back onto his perch, and Bruce walked in front of the tv, passing out everyone’s box. He exchanged Tony’s pizza for the table, and sat in his chair, everyone already digging in.


	2. Cross Boston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony sighed, and took the helmet off fully. “In my defence-” He started, and continued, ignoring the combined glare of the agents across from him, “how the hell was I supposed to know this car was going to fuck off into the nether-dimension after we got on it?”  
> Clint threw his hands in the air. “”Let's get on the subway!” you said, “It’ll be fine!” you said, even though the subway in question had been eating people for at least a fucking week!” Clint said, exasperated, and turned to Natasha. “Why the hell did we think this was a good idea, Nat?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the short story A Subway Named Mobius.

Tony sat down heavily onto the plastic chair under the row of windows. Clint and Natasha, both of them fully suited up, sat opposite him, side-by-side in an identical row of chairs. Tony sighed and popped the faceplate after getting no ping-back from anything. Again. Because they were stuck in a subway car in Boston. Or, not-Boston, considering the train they were in never stopped at any of the empty stations, and whenever they passed aboveground, nobody could see, or hear them. Hell, they’ve passed the rest of the team twice at this point, and no amount of shouting or waving got any attention.

“You know, this reminds me of a recurring nightmare I had when I was still at MIT.” He said, trying for lightness.

Natasha and Clint - didn't glare, exactly, but then again, It was kinda-sorta-maybe his fault that they were stuck in not-Boston, and had been for what was probably about an hour. 

He sighed and took the helmet off fully. “In my defence-” He started, and continued, ignoring the combined glare of the agents across from him, “how the hell was I supposed to know this car was going to fuck off into the nether-dimension after we got on it?”

Clint threw his hands in the air. “”Let's get on the subway!” you said, “It’ll be fine!” you said, even though the subway in question had been  _ eating  _ people for at least a fucking week!” Clint said, exasperated, and turned to Natasha. “Why the hell did we think this was a good idea, Nat?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Tony can make even the worst ideas sound logical, and-”

“Hey!”

“-and getting on the subway was the best way to get internal readings,” Natasha said, completely steamrolling over his indignant interruption. “Speaking of, what did you get from those, anyway?” Natasha asked.

Tony sighed and put his helmet back on. “For all intents and purposes, all my scanners show that we haven't left Boston. We’re still on the subway system.” He ignored Clint’s extremely sceptical look “There’s normal radiation levels, no magic, it’s not time-travel, not invisibility, hell, it’s not even dimensional travel, and if the readings back at the control system were correct, this train is still drawing power from the city grid. We haven't fucking moved.”

The conversation passed into silence as the train passed downtown crossing, where Bruce had set up various equipment and SHIELD a small base of operations. They waved halfheartedly and had time to see Steve look up towards the tracks, but he obviously didn't see them. 

The train was back in darkness a second later.

Clint broke the slightly somber silence by firing an explosive arrow at the back of the train. Natasha and Tony both glared at him when the arrow only slightly darkened the already soot-covered surface, which was the result of about 45 minutes of increasingly inventive ways that should have gotten them out of the train. Tony, of course, had not used some of his more dangerous arsenal, because in a space this small, both of the agents would have been in danger.

Clint sighed and folded his bow back up. “Hey, if you guys have any better ideas for how to get out of here, I’m all ears.” He said, folding his arms over his chest.

Natasha and Clint both stared at Tony expectantly. He threw his hands in the air. “Seriously?” They both raised their eyebrows, perfectly in sync. He grumbled under his breath as he opened one of the storage capsules on his leg, pulling out the small but extensive set of tools. “Fine, Guess it’s up to me. Why is it always up to me? Why is that?” 

He took off a gauntlet and methodically began stripping out wires and reforming the parts, a theory already half-formed in his head. It would really help if he could get a message out to Bruce because he was pretty sure that the subway issue has something to do with topology, and all he needed is enough energy to twist the system back into its place.

Getting enough energy, however, was going to be a bitch. 

He opened another storage capsule, this one full of various spare parts and a spool of soldering wire. He ignored the slightly worried staring of the other two, and opened a panel on the back of his hands, tweaking the output so he can weld some of the parts together.

He flipped the faceplate down and looked consideringly at Natasha and Clint. “You might not want to look at this, welding and all.” He waved vaguely at the windows behind them. “Just… It’s a beautiful sunny day, admire the scenery or something.” 

He waited for a second, but they still didn't look away. “What?” He snapped, flipping the faceplate up and glaring at them.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “We would be considerably less nervous if you told us what you were doing. And how likely it is to blow up.”

Tony blinked at them, and sighed. “It’s not going to blow up. That didn't work the first time, It’s not gonna work now.” He sent a look at Clint. “We’re on a train, right?” When both of them raised their eyebrows at him, he sighed and continued. “Metaphorically. We’re on a train on a double track, but we’re on the wrong track. I,” He spread his hands wide, “Am going to switch us to the right track. Or,” He amended with a shrug, “I’m gonna blow us up trying. Anyway, welding time now, please avert your eyes! SHIELD would be pissed if I blinded Hawk _ eye _ .”

When they both turned to look out the window, he flipped the faceplate back down and began welding, the repulsor gauntlet sparking bright electric blue. 

When he was done welding, about 15 minutes later, and finished the device entirely 30 minutes later, he took the helmet off and set the device aside, wiring a portion of it into the helmet sensors so JARVIS could use the readings, then looked down at the rest of the parts half-assembled on the seat consideringly. “J, how much power are we gonna need?”

JARVIS answered from the helmet, which he had propped against the window, facing out so that he could make a map and find where the switch-point was. “By my estimations, the energy required to “switch tracks,” as you so eloquently put it, will be approximately 4.58 gigawatts, which is more than the arc reactor can safely output.” 

Tony swore. “Ok, that’s fucking fantastic. How much output can we store, how long will that take, and how long till we hit the switch-point again?”

“The additional batteries from the armour, along with the ones you can make with the available materials, can hold an additional gigawatt. Siphoning off that amount of power safely will take around an hour.” JARVIS paused, “And there is not yet enough data to determine where the switch point is, or if we will even hit it.”

“Well, fuck. Start charging the suit’s batteries, and update me if you find it.” Tony said, already stripping more of the armour to work on the next device he needed. From one of the compartments, he took out 3 granola bars, and tossed two of them to Natasha and Clint, before digging into his own. “You should eat. We might be in here for a while.” He looked up at them, both hands working on autopilot, stripping and reconnecting wires with ease. “I really hope neither of you have to use the bathroom.” 

Clint, at least, snorted at that. Natasha only rolled her eyes, but Tony counted that as a success. After about half an hour of silence on Clint and Natasha’s part, and muttering at JARVIS on Tony’s, Clint spoke. “So, exactly how much food do you have in there?”

Tony looked up, to where Clint had sprawled across three of the seats, feet in Natasha’s lap. “Seriously, I thought all the available space was packed with missiles and shit. Which, for the record, there’s way more of them than I thought there was.” He spun an arrow in his fingers, grinning, “Though, considering the amount of weapons that Tash can hide in a skintight bodysuit I really shouldn't be surprised.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Trust me, birdbrain, you don’t know half of what I’ve got in here. I do have water, too, if you guys need a drink.” When both of them responded with “I’m good”, he went back to work.

It was too quiet in the train car, even with the rattling of the train is they moved. So, to fill the silience,he talked. Natasha listened with half an ear, and even answered some of the absent-minded questions he asked. So far, he had learned that her favourite time of year was late summer when the leaves just started to turn, and that her favourite dessert was baklava or lemon tarts.

Clint looked to be asleep, stretched out on the seats and Natasha with his hands cushioning his head. He probably wasn't, but for what he added to the conversation, he might as well have been.

Any and all electronics with a battery, which included Clint’s quiver and Natasha’s stingers and taser, had been appropriated by Tony, and wired into the suit to charge. The empty seats around him were quickly becoming non-empty, the jumble of parts and wires slowly spreading out like it had a mind of its own.

They passed Downtown Crossing again, and Tony stopped working to look at Bruce, settled behind a table full of monitors and empty coffee cups, and Steve, looking over his shoulder and frowning at whatever was displayed, both sporting dark bags under pinched eyes. Neither of them looked like they’d slept in days.

Wait. 

Tony ran his eyes back over the scene, sitting up straighter and making certain he was right because he could  _ not _ afford to be wrong. 

He swore, violently, and started tearing at the half-assembled machine in his lap, wiring and rewiring so quickly his hands were a blur. “Fucking shit, JARVIS, tell me you got that.” He snapped, keeping up a litany of swears as he worked, considerably quicker now. “Dammit, how much slower are we going?” 

“By my estimations, we are behind by two days.” JARVIS replied, tone short and sharp.

Clint was sitting rigidly in his seat, all semblance of relaxation gone, fingers twitching nervously on his bow. “Wait, what the hell just happened?” Clint asked.

Tony ignored the question for the moment when they surfaced, spinning around and craning his head to look up at the sky. His expression went grim as he looked at the heavy rain. 

He twisted back into his seat, snapping equations and instructions to JARVIS, his fingers flying over the mechanisms of the machine that sat in his lap, and JARVIS finished the new calculations at the same time he did. He cut off JARVIS’s tentative, worried “Sir-” with a burst of more swears that had Clint and Natasha gripping their weapons even tighter. “It had to be fucking irrational, didn't it!” He snarled, shaking his head angrily and slamming the device together, wiring it into the suit and all the charged devices. When he was finished, it looked like a cross between a coffee grinder and a tesla gun. “JARVIS, exactly how screwed are we?”

JARVIS was interrupted by Natasha, who had reached across the aisle and physically grabbed his hand, forcing him to pay attention to her. “Stark, slow down. What is going on?” She demanded, and he sighed and looked up at them. 

Instead of directly answering, he turned to both of them, spreading his hands. “How long have we been here? Take a guess.” They both replied, somewhat confused, with guesses of an hour or two, and he cut them off. “Wrong. Good news, all the other missing passengers are probably fine. Bad news, we’ve been gone for two days. Really really fucking worse news, that means that that switch point I was looking for? Gone.”

Clint narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, “gone”? It’s a place, right? So it can’t be gone.”

Tony sighed. “Ok, well the deal is this: The “switch-point”, isn't actually a place. Or it is, but you have to take the correct path to get to it. We’ve been bouncing around stations out of order, and I  _ thought _ it was a loop. We get sucked in, we go through a certain order of stations, hit the switch point again, and the pattern repeats.” He glanced at them and shrugged helplessly. “Only, there’s not a pattern. The order this thing is following is irrational, and It’s never going to loop, so no switch-point.” 

There was a beat of silence as the two agents processed that.

“Please tell me we’re not stuck here. I do not want to die in Boston.” Clint joked, but it was weak because nobody wanted to die on public transit. It was undignified, strongly implies that you’re an idiot if you can’t stay alive long enough to finish your commute, unless it’s dramatic everyone will just assume you’ve fallen asleep and god help the poor soul who  _ tries _ to  _ wake you up _ , and everyone riding with you will end up hating you at the end of the day because you’ve managed to extend their ride by half an hour.

It’s probably a little sad that Tony has considered exactly how embarrassing randomly kicking it on public transit would for any length of time. Especially considering that it was actually  _ possible _ more than once.

Tony see-sawed his hand and grimaced. “Theoretically, we’re not stuck here.”

“And practically?” Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tony rubbed at his face. “Think about what happens when you try to get a speeding train to switch tracks without a connection.” Both Natasha and Clint grimaced. “Yeah, exactly. Hopefully, the energy surge will be enough to snap all the trains back, but without a pre-designated exit point, it’s gonna be a-” He cut off, counting, “-four train pile-up at the outside end.” He said and shrugged again. If he didn't mention the additional power usage, and that he’d have to push the arc reactor output past what was technically safe for him, well, they didn't have to know.

“Anyways,” He clapped his hands, and the faceplate slammed down. “Are there any more questions, or can I get us all the fuck home?” He looked around expectantly, and the other two both nodded grimly and got strapped in as best they can. 

“Sir, the power required-” 

“I’ve run the numbers, I know, J. Get us home, I’ll worry about everything else later.” Tony cut JARVIS off ruthlessly, wedged the device under a seat to protect it, and braced himself as best he could in what remained in the armour.

There was a bright flare of light, the flickering of the reactor unnoticeable amongst the glare, and then Tony was biting back a curse as he was flung head-over-heels into a metal pole, bashing it with his unprotected side as the train screeched to a stop, upside-down and dented from its collisions with the others into Downtown Crossing.

When the world finally stopped spinning, Tony opened his eyes to find himself sprawled awkwardly on the ceiling of the train, which was now the floor. He sat up, glad to notice that Clint and Natasha looked bruised but mostly unharmed from where they’d wedged themselves into a corner.

He scooped up his device and tucked it under his arm, then blasted open the door, holding out an arm in invitation. Clint and Natasha hopped out onto the tracks with ease, where SHIELD agents were swarming the other trains, helping people out of the cars and assisting with any injured.

Steve found them barely two seconds after they had climbed up onto the platform. Steve wasted no time before clinging to Tony in a hug, and without the boots, he was short enough that his head was pressed against Steve’s chest, his arms wrapped around his back. “Jesus Christ, Tony.” Steve said, and he said it so quietly that Tony wasn't even sure he was supposed to hear it.

When it became clear that Steve wasn't going to let go on his own, Tony patted him on the back with his de-gauntleted hand. “Easy, Cap. I’m fine. We’re all fine.” He said, softly, and grinned at Steve when he pulled away. 

When Steve started cataloguing the half-disassembled armour, the strange red-and-gold device under his arm, and the bruise that Tony knew was going to be absolutely spectacular the next day, Tony put his hand on Steve’s shoulder and shook him, gently, ducking his head to look Steve in the eye. “I’m fine. I needed bits of the armour for parts, that’s all.” He said, again, because it really looked like Steve needed the reassurance. 

“Tony, you were gone for two days. We thought you were dead.” Steve said, and he sounded heartbroken. 

Tony patted him on the shoulder, and stepped back, turning to where Natasha and Clint were debriefing with Coulson. “Not on our end, it wasn't. I’ll explain later.” He promised, and Steve was opening his mouth to speak when a frazzled-looking dark-skinned man with a backpack slung over one shoulder and a cut along his cheekbone grabbed his arm. Steve was half-way into a defensive position even as he spun around, but once he got a good look at the guy he glared at Steve, stopping him in his tracks.

The man’s eyes were locked on the device under his arm, and when he looked up to Tony, his eyes were manic and distraught in equal parts. “You- you built this. You fixed this- you- need to stop him.” He stammered out the first part, but the last words, though accented, were clearly pronounced, and forceful. 

Tony cocked his head, curious. “Stop who? And how’d you know what this was?” He asked, shifting the device under his arm. 

In response, the man dug in his backpack, letting go of Tony’s arm, and held out a near-identical piece of tech, except this one had wires connecting to a massive array of lithium-ion batteries, the metal plating wasn't red and gold, and it was sparking fitfully where it looked like someone had taken a wrench to it. “My name is Memphis Talo, and my-” He spat the next word as if it tasted bad. “Colleague caused this. I am sorry that I could not prevent this, or stop it before it went out of control.” 

Tony’s eyes sharpened, scanning the device for what he’d done differently, how to build it better, and was opening his mouth to ask how he’d thought of it, when Steve grabbed his arm and whispered forcefully into his ear. “Tony, we’ll have time for tech questions later. SHIELD first.” 

Tony rolled his eyes, and gestured towards where Coulson was organising a group of agents, along with debriefing with Natasha and Clint. “Alright, Mr. Talo. Let’s find your supervillain colleague before he can fuck up any more public transit.”

\---

Dr. Talo, as he was actually called because as it turns out the man had two PhD’s, in both theoretical mathematical and mechanical engineering, as it turned out, was 100% correct in suspecting that the subway incident was his colleague's fault. Dr. Talo had recognised him trying to sneak out of the subway, and SHIELD had quickly apprehended him. 

Tony, complete with fresh arc reactor, was now standing on the other side of plane of mirror glass, watching with Coulson as Natasha questioned the mathematician along with Jane Foster on Skype call, because the man was spouting topographical mathematics like a goddamn fountain and Natasha was hard-pressed to keep up. Jane had been called because some of his equations held interesting connotations for wormhole travel, and there was nobody better at the more fuzzy math of wormholes than Jane.

Tony turned to Coulson, hands in his pockets. “I call dibs.” He said, and nearly groaned when Coulson just arched an eyebrow at him. “Really?!” He whined because, for this man’s beautiful brain, we would gladly lower himself to whining. “This guy is literally the poster employee for S.I. I need his brain. You wouldn't know what to do with it.”

Colson, in return, just looked at him. “Come on. I let you have Foster, and her friend, and that was actually physically painful for me to do. I didn't even offer because you know she’d choose S.I and our, what, two hundred satellites over SHIELD’s any day, not to mention the fact that with S.I she’d get to live in the tower. With her space boyfriend.”

Coulson glanced at him, and then turned back to watch the interrogation.

Tony groaned. “I’m not getting him, are I?” He asked, even though he knew it was moot point.

“You’re not getting him.” Coulson agreed, and together they watched as Natasha gave up on trying to understand any of it, and began filing overdue paperwork.


	3. Syrtos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony was having a great day. And then the flooding started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is utterly ridiculous. Please enjoy.

Tony was having a fantastic day. And the flooding started. Well, it was seven in the morning, so the day was just starting, but that was semantics. 

It really had been a good day, too. His Top Secret Plan was coming along nicely, and all he needed was a day everyone was free and a couple more pieces of intel. He had made a breakthrough with the reactor, Rhodey was coming over on leave, and even Dummy was dropping fewer things than usual. So, you really couldn't blame him for being pissed. 

Tony stared at the glowing wall in front of him, considering it from where he was hovering in front of it. It looked insubstantial, like dust motes caught in golden sunlight, sparks floating aimlessly upwards, a shape defined only by the brain’s insistence to create borders where there were none.

“I’m gonna touch it.” He said. 

There was a beat of silence. 

“Tony…” Bruce sighed, at the same time Steve let out a panicked, “Tony, no!”

Tony sighed. “It is a  _ wall _ . It’s not going to hurt me.” He hovered closer, half-heartedly scanning the readings JARVIS was taking. “Besides, if it  _ does  _ do something other than being an indestructible fucking barrier, better that it whammies me instead of some poor civvie in a kayak. Also, I might get some better readings that might actually be fucking useful.” 

It wasn't like he wasn't going to touch it if they said no. The data could be important, and if humans could get through, they could actually start evacuating people, because along with the fucking wall, the water level was slowly rising, and it had almost breached the banks in the hour since the wall had been up. In some places, like Battery Park and North Cove, it already had. Steve was directing all the SHIELD agents not trying to breach the wall in sandbagging around the hospitals, along with a small army of volunteers. 

A small armada of SHIELD interns, headed by Dr Foster’s assistant, Darcy, was stationed on Queensboro Bridge, managing the flow of information via whiteboards to the outside. Yeah, Tony thought that communication via hand-written signs was pretty inefficient, but until someone got screens and computers out there, it would have to do. 

“Banner?” Steve asked, and Tony rolled his eyes. 

“You know that I am the one sending him all of the sensor readings, right? I can see them. Shocking, I know, but I can actually make goddamn decisions by myself, because  _ surprise _ , I actually know what the fuck I’m doing.” Tony snapped, cutting over Bruce’s no doubt correct response because he was not in the mood for this shit. 

So, mostly just to spite Steve, he touched the wall. As expected, it was as solid as it looked insubstantial, impassible to both missiles and the pure brute force of the Hulk.

“-And you’ve already touched it, haven't you,” Bruce said, the sentence trailing off as he looked at the new data.

“Yup. And, because I can fucking read the fucking sensors  _ that I built _ , I was correct in assuming that nothing would happen.” Tony snapped, almost skimming the wall as he shot upwards. 

Luckily, Steve did not respond to that. Thor had reported that the wall went all the way up to the stratosphere, but Tony hadn’t been able to go up there and get readings yet. “How’s the reactor holding up?” Tony asked, watching as the golden glow got fainter the higher he got. Honestly, it was kind of pretty. That did not stop Tony from hating the goddamn thing with a vengeance. 

At least it wasn't fucking magic. No, for once, this threat was purely technological, even though it was alien tech and any efforts to bring it down or find the source were turning out to be futile. 

“The reactor is maintaining 100% efficiency, and despite the power drain, it is functioning well.” JARVIS said, and damn, that was the first piece of good news Tony had had all day. 

The armour slowed as the wall became less dense, spreading out and arching around like a fuzzy cathedral ceiling. At around fifteen thousand feet, it stopped altogether, not able to push through even though the barrier was weaker here than at ground-level.

Sighing, he took more scans, tried to break through half-heartedly a couple times, and when that failed, dropped into freefall. 

Clouds drifted through the wall as he plummeted towards them, so death via asphyxiation was unlikely. Though, if the water level continued rising at the rate it was, drowning would be the most likely fate for everyone still trapped. That or starvation.

So sue him, if he was being morbid. He did not want to die in a Manhattan-sized fish tank.

“Stark, bridge team wants you there in 15.” Coulson said, crisp over the comm. 

Tony shot off a quick affirmative, and adjusted his course, adding the speed of the repulsors to the work gravity was already doing and rocketing towards the bridge. Below him, he spotted Steve, hauling sandbags from pickup trucks onto a wall, slowly surrounding metro-general. The streets were eerily quiet, with most people not volunteering staying in their homes as advised.  

He landed lightly on the bridge, in a small space cleared of people and was immediately shepherded towards a group of people who were presumably waiting, just like him. They glanced up, curious, but all of them were New Yorkers and were mostly used to superheroes at this point.

For fifteen minutes, nothing of note happened, so he people-watched. Lewis’s crew of SHIELD interns was running the place well, herding new arrivals from both the busses, some of the only vehicles still allowed on the streets and re-routed to shuttle volunteers and the people coming here to get word out. Off-white canvas sheets were fluttering against the wall, arranged into sections so that people could have at least a sense of privacy. Markers and whiteboards were changing hands at a startling pace, people rushing to-and-fro with the sort of organised chaos that was SHIELD’s trademark.

Someone called his name, and even though he really didn't have to, he raised his hands like he’d seen others doing. A distracted-looking intern who looks like she should still be in high school shoved a whiteboard and bright red marker at him, and walked towards the wall. Slightly bemused, Tony followed her and stepped behind the curtain she indicated.

He beamed and took off his helmet when he saw Rhodey, in full war-machine armour on the other side of the wall. He looked tense but relaxed slightly when he saw Tony. 

Tony held his whiteboard up, which read,  _ JARVIS online?  _

Rhodey nodded and held his own up.  _ Not connected to NY. Suit? _

Tony shook his head.  _ Just needed to fly+scan. No fighting. _

_ Magic?  _

_ No. Alien tech. No fix yet. _

Rhodey frowned.  _ Is there danger? _

_ Not until water rises more. Air+drinking water is fine.  _

_ Water? _

_ Level rising at 1m/hr. Might flood soon. _

Rhodey paused, frowning.  _ Where’s it coming from? _ He writes.

Tony shrugged.  _ We think the barrier is sucking it in from the harbour. Bruce said something about cell walls. Doesn't really matter, it’s not like we can evaluate. _ His next message is up before Rhodey can finish his.  _ Rain-check? _

Rhodey rolled his eyes, and sobered.  _ Sure. Pepper’s worried. Not much info outside. _

Tony sighed.  _ I’m fine. Not much info in here, either. Biggest worry is flooding.  _

_ You doing alright on that end?  _

_ Yeah. Nat+Clint are trying to find a breach in the subway, Steve’s sandbagging around the hospitals.  _

His helmet beeped from where he’d put it on the ground, and he glanced at it. Rhodey stopped writing and raised an eyebrow.

Tony scooped up his helmet and put it on.

“Stark, there’s some idiot on a dinghy who’s caught in the turbulence by the barrier. Please go pick him up and stop him from shooting it.” Coulson said, exasperated, yet succinct as always. 

Tony had to hold back a laugh. He fucking told Steve.  _ Civvy took a boat and a gun to the wall. “ferry service” is my job now. Talk later?  _ He wrote, and Rhodey rolled his eyes. 

_ Sure. _

Tony gave him a thumbs up, left the booth, gave his marker and whiteboard back to a different intern, and took off. 

\---

Tony let his head fall onto the lab bench. He and Bruce had been trying to figure out the wall for six hours now, and the water was still rising. There were people who were kayaking in the middle of the street. And  _ succeeding _ . SHIELD had mostly invaded the Tower at this point, along with many people whose apartments were flooding. 

He had some issues with SHIELD being in his tower, but everything important was locked down, but it wasn't as if he didn't have room. Most of the office levels were converted into temporary housing and the R&D labs were stuffed to the brim with scientists of all sorts. Apparently there was some space sharing issues between the particle physicists and the chemists, which had sparked into a fierce rivalry and now there was tape dividing the lab in half. It was sit-com level humor.

Except no amount of humor would change the fact that every single simulation he ran, every single thing he tried didn't work. He raised his head, and let it fall again, landing with a thump.

Bruce looked at him in concern, from where he was running his own simulations. 

Tony groaned. “This isn't fucking working.” The words were muffled by the surface of the table.

He looked up when he heard Bruce move, pushing aside his screen and coming to sit on the lab stool next to him. “No, it’s not.” He said, and took off his glasses to pinch at his nose. “There has to be  _ something,  _ doesn't there?”

“I really fucking hope so.” Tony said, and sighed. “We’ve tried everything we can think of. Nothing works.”

Bruce looked up. “Maybe that’s the problem.” He said slowly, and turns to face Tony. “Maybe  _ we  _ can’t think of everything.”

Tony could practically see the idea forming behind his eyes.

“We can’t. Think of everything, that is.” Bruce continued. “It’s physically impossible. Even you can’t think fast enough to think of everything. We need more brains.”

Tony grinned at him. “Time to call in the cavalry?”

Bruce smiled back. “Yeah, I think it is.”

\---

The cavalry, as Tony has christened it, consisted of all the scientists that Tony and Bruce could get in one place in under thirty minutes, w hich meant they were both in one of the larger labs, along with about 100 scientists ranging from tiny SI interns to ancient university professors Tony had tracked down. It was very crowded.

“Alright, listen up!” He called, and waited for everyone to shut up. “You may all be wondering why i’ve gathered you here today.” He paused, and waited for the snickering to die down. “It severely hurts my pride to say this, but we’re stumped. I’m sure people as smart as all of you can figure out what’s stumped us.” He gestured to Bruce, who was pushing a laptop cart. “This cart has tablets with all the data about the barrier on it. You all have until the water reaches the tower, which should be in about 4 hours, to come up with something. If you need any tech, data, or scans, give us a good reason why you need it and we’ll get it, provided it’s within Manhattan.” He pointed to the SHIELD physicists, and at the chemists, who were glaring at each other from opposite ends of the room. “Working together is strongly encouraged, so no fighting.” 

One of the scientists raised his hand, glancing around at their group, who were all sitting on lab tables and looking nervous. “Uh, we’re biologists. I’m not sure how much help we’ll be.”

Tony rolled his eyes at them. “Look, even if you’re not the ones who figure anything out, helping the people who might is still useful. Even if all you do is prevent half the people here from killing the other half, that would be great. Hell, even if all you do is fetch coffee, you’re still helping. Got that?”

The biologists nodded, though most of them still looked dubious.

He opened his mouth to start, but was interrupted again by a mousey-looking intern, and seriously, what was with the hand-raising? 

He glared at him, but motioned for him to speak anyway. “Is there going to be a prize?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You know what, sure. Whoever figures this out gets a year’s supply of your caffeinated beverage of choice, and not dying in an alien fishtank. Is there any more questions?” He asked, and when no one else tried to interrupt him, he clapped his hands, and the many screens around the lab were filled with data. “Ok, now these are the readings from the barrier…”

\---

The water had reached the base of the tower, and Tony was watching as Coulson tried to stop about 30 overcaffeinated scientists from blasting the wall with whatever strange devices they’d come up with in the five hours he left them unsupervised. If it was Tony’s decision, he would totally have let them. 

What made it even funnier was that the physicist/chemist rivalry was still going strong, so along with restraining the extremely enthusiastic scientists that want to test their devices right fucking now, Coulson was also trying to prevent hilariously unskilled but still possibly successful sabotage attempts. From both sides.

Steve was there too, which confused Tony at first, but now he was physically holding a tiny woman in a labcoat spattered in unidentifiable stains and a gangly man who’s labcoat barely passed his elbows back from clawing each other's eyes out. Privately, he was betting on the woman. 

Someone whistled, loud and piercing, easily cutting over the din. The person who whistled, a biologist, judging from the lack of mechanical monstrosity in her arms. Technically, no one who didn't have something to test wasn't supposed to be there, but it seemed Coulson had turned a blind eye in want of another scientist-herder. She waited until everyone had stopped fighting, then gestured to Coulson, who nodded gratefully at her.

“Now that you’ve all stopped fighting like children, please make a line so that we finally start the tests.” Coulson said, and glared until everyone formed an orderly line. There was some shoving, but under the combined force of both Steve’s and Coulson’s disappointed faces, it quickly turned into sheepish shuffling.

One after another, everyone tested their devices. None of them caused so much as a flicker. Some people accepted defeat gracefully and went to stand further down the bridge, some of them swore, and one of them kicked the barrier so hard that he broke his toe. It was hard not to be disappointed, but as the group waiting to walk back along Ward’s island bridge got larger, the hope that something would be able to fix this dwindled until there was only a handful of people left in line.

Tony was just turning to stand with the waiting group when someone shoved him, hard, sending him stumbling backwards further up the bridge.

“Hey, what gives?” He snapped, after he came to a halt. 

No one replied, because they were all just staring at him, even the woman who presumably pushed him, because she was currently being held in a headlock by Steve. Even Coulson looked incredulous, or at least as incredulous as he ever looked.

Steve opened and closed his mouth a couple times, like a fish. “Uh, Tony…” He said, and unconsciously released the uncomfortably smug-looking woman who had shoved him “Your arm…”

“What about my-” Tony snapped, already spinning to look. “Oh.” He said once he actually saw his arm, and promptly understood why everyone was staring at him. His hand was in the barrier, cutting through it without any effort, splitting the barrier at his wrist where it flowed upwards like water to join again above him.

“Oh.” He said again, and flexed his hand, turning his arm and swishing it through the wall. His hand was sticking clear through to the other side, completely unaffected. Now that he was concentrating, though, he could feel it. It was weird, like the fuzz of carbonation just above a drink.

He turned around, and narrowed his eyes at the shovey-woman. “Did you know this would happen? Or did you just want to push me into a wall?” He asked. “Because if you just wanted to cause me mild bodily harm I’m gonna have to fire you. Nothing personal, just principal.”

The woman grinned. “I’m not one of yours, so you can’t fire me. But yeah, I was hoping that would happen.” She held out a tablet with some interesting modifications. “You’ve got a weird static thing going on, kinda opposite to the barrier. I figured either it would cancel out and you’d pass through, or react very strongly and blow both of you up. Either way, wall’s gone.”

Steve made a choked sound, and Tony took the tablet, mostly unconcerned at that fact that he might have been blow up. It was still open on whichever program she’d been using, kind of like infrared. He pointed it at the barrier, which showed up in violent orange-gold. He stuck his arm in front of it, and watched as small sparks of electric blue danced over his skin. He turned it to everyone else, and they all showed up in varying shades of pale yellow-green. Steve was a little brighter.

“Huh.” He said. Obviously, the arc-reactor had something to do with this. He knew he was more susceptible to static shock, because if he didn’t touch metal for a while his hair would poof up like a dandelion. He’d shocked Pepper a couple times, and himself whenever he touched metal. He was fairly used to electric shocks, but after a while it just got annoying, so he'd built grounding wires into his shoes. 

“What are you even scanning for, here?” He asked, and handed her back the tablet when she made grabby-hands for it.

“Electrostatic frequencies. Are you sure you’re not an alien? Because I scanned Thor on the way here and whatever you’ve got going on is almost as weird as him.” She said, and poked at the tablet until there was a picture of Thor on the screen, lit up in pure white light. The screen split, until there was a picture of him as well, covered in blue sparks that clustered slightly around the reactor, which thankfully didn't show up.

“I’m pretty sure, yeah. If i’m not that means that like seven paternity tests are extremely wrong and I really don’t want to go back to court for that. Did you have a plan other than “Push Tony at the wall and see what happens”?” He asked, stepping forwards to stick his arm through the barrier again. “Because I can get through the wall, which is pretty great, but that doesn't really solve any of the long-term problems. I suppose I could kinda lie down on it so people can leave through the gap, but again, short-term solution.”

Instead of replying, the woman stepped forward, grabbed his arm that wasn't halfway through the barrier, and shoved her own arm through. “Static isn't really the best term, considering that it’ll jump from person to person if given half a chance.” She said, and beamed.

Tony blinked. “You can’t be serious.” He said. 

The woman kept grinning. 

\---

“This is utterly ridiculous.” Steve said, from where he was standing beside Tony. He did not look entirely pleased. 

Tony grinned. “Yes it is. We’re still doing it.” He said, and nearly tipped over the side of the boat when a wave crashed against the side of it. Steve steadied him, and Tony looked to his right, at the long line of sea-worthy debris, bobbing up and down beside the barrier, each carrying a person or three, stretching as far as he could see. There were yachts, dinghies, canoes, and even haphazard rafts made out of wooden pallets and two-by-fours. 

He looked to his right, and saw more of the same. A couple boats down the line, there was a group of students floating around in taped-together inner tubes. He was pretty sure they were breaking quite a few records here. After all, they were about to create a chain of boats surrounding all of Manhattan. 

He stepped around Steve so he could yell at the SHIELD boat. “Hey, Hershey Bar!” He shouted over the crashing waves. Some of the scientists looked a little green. “You sure you don’t wanna join SI? We’ve got better boats!” He called, and grinned when Lindsey Hershal, the scientist who had pushed him into the wall in the first place, cheerfully flipped him off as one of her colleagues vomited over the railing of the smaller boat.

Coulson put his hand to his earpiece, expression firm, and nodded. He turned to face the team. “It’s time.” He said, and how he managed to look stern while there was a group of teenagers tossing a beach ball back and forth behind him was a complete and utter mystery. 

Tony took a deep breath, and braced himself against the railing so he could lean backwards and into the wall. 

It split like water, flowing around his outstretched arms to rejoin above him. On his right, Steve grabbed his hand and let the barrier flow around him, on his left Bruce did the same. Radiating out from him like a shockwave, people were taking each other's hands, continuing the chain of people who were slowly, but surely, creating a gap in the wall. 

Occasionally there were cracks in the wall of bodies, and a stream of golden light would flash up, flickering and dancing like an aurora, but with bated breath, the watched the gap spread around the island, and finally, it met. The wall was down.

For a moment, nothing happened, and the approximately 25000 people who made up the ring, as well as all of the rest of manhattan, held their breath. 

And then there was a sound like ripping paper, times a thousand, the remaining barrier glowed bright, and it  _ shattered. _

There was whoops and cries of victory, echoing across the water from both directions, and Tony fell over the edge of the boat as the 8 plus meters of water that had been trapped inside the barrier suddenly realized that hey, it could move, and did just that. 

\---

Tony was still very damp when Coulson finally herded them all into a conference room and left to coordinate the post-flood cleanup. The villain of the day, some kid who’d got his hands on alien tech, had been dragged back to the bowels of SHIELD kicking and screaming, presumably to spend some quality time in jail. It was a good plan, kill/trap all the people who could reasonably fight him off before trying to conquer the world, except for the fact that  _ he was still inside manhattan.  _ Seriously. 

Luckily, he was not the only person slowly but surely ruining the upholstery, because Clint had fallen off the boat as well. Well, Tony was pretty sure he’d jumped off on purpose, because he was grinning like a loon, even though he hadn't bothered to dry off and was dripping everywhere. Luckily, it wasn't winter, so they weren’t cold.

“I can’t believe that actually worked.” Tony said into the quiet of the room.

There was a beat of silence

“Tony, that was  _ your _ idea!” Steve exclaimed, looking mildly horrified.

“Well,” Tony amended, “Intellectually I knew it was going to work, but most of me is still having trouble processing the fact that we saved Manhattan by  _ holding hands.  _ Seriously, that is some cartoon-science bullshit right there.” He sat up straighter, and gestured in a way that he hoped convey the utter ridiculousness of the situation. “We beat scary-advanced alien tech by  _ holding hands! _ ” He repeated, and leaned further back into the chair. “Where’s Natasha, anyways?” He asked, because everyone except her was in the room. 

Thor was poking at the aforementioned alien device, in an effort to see if he recognized the species that built it. Tony had examined it himself, and even though all the delicate circuits were fried, it was clear it was way beyond anything else he’d seen, and he’d seen a lot of advanced tech. 

There was a soft sound from behind him. “I’m right here, Stark.” Natasha said, right into his ear.

Tony jumped, nearly falling out of his chair. “Christ woman, I have a heart condition!” He said, and turned to glare at Natasha, but it was mostly an empty gesture. Scaring the shit out of people was how Natasha showed affection.

She just chuckled, and ruffled his hair. “That’s what you get for having your back to the door.” She sat down next to Clint, who shook his head in an attempt to spray her with water, and managed to hit everyone except her. “So, anything new with the device?” She asked, glancing at both Tony and Thor.

Thor shook his head. “The device is not from a people known to me, and Allspeak refuses to translate the writing.” He said, apologetically, and nodded his head in Tony’s direction.

Tony took his cue, and Thor slid the sleek, metallic device across the table. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He said, sitting forwards and drumming his fingers on the table. “I’m glad that this wasn't actually an attack from whoever invented it, because if the rest of their tech is as advanced as this, they would’ve wiped us out just like that.” He said, snapping his fingers to emphasize his point.“As far as I can tell, it wasn't designed to be a weapon, more a giant water purifier, but it can still do some damage. Obviously.” He finished.

Steve’s brow furrowed. “If it’s as advanced as you say it is, how did we manage to beat it?” He asked, staring at the device.

Tony grinned. “Well, it’s a giant water purifier, right? They need to get the water out somehow. Charge a pipe with a certain frequency of electrostatic electricity, and bam. Spigot. It was never designed to have the energy concentrated like it was when we circled around it, so it failed. Fried the insides, too, which sucks.” He said, and opened the panel, revealing the charred interior of the machine.

When he first saw it, he almost  _ cried.  _ The workmanship was incredible, tiny flaws indicating that it had been hand-made, not manufactured or fabricated. There was no copper, all the circuits were made out of intricately carved layers of graphene. Or, they had been. Now it was just a mass of soot-covered charcoal.

Suddenly, something Thor had said crossed his mind. “What do you mean the Allspeak refuses to translate? I thought it worked on everything.” Tony asked, looking up from the device.

Thor shook his head. “Nay, peoples with natural defences against “telepathy” can hide their words and speech from beings such as us.” Thor said, and that made sense. Thor had already told them that the Allspeak was a kind of subconscious magic. It had kinda freaked everyone out, but it wasn't mind reading or control, so they got used to it.

“That’s a thing? Neat. Well, this thing is basically useless now, but i’m keeping it.” He said, and no one objected. He tucked it under his arm, and made to stand up. “Are we done here? I think we’re done here.” 

He started walking towards the door, but his exit was blocked with Coulson, who just raised an eyebrow at him. He dropped back into his seat, and groaned. “Do we need to debrief? Is it really necessary? We were all there, we all knew what happened, some idiot found a extremely user-friendly piece of alien tech and decided to take over the world, that’s it, debrief done?” He asked hopefully, but didn't really expect to be released.

Coulson didn't dignify him with a response, just stepped to the side to let another person enter the room. “I assume that you’ve all heard about Doctor Linsey Hershal. And, no, Stark, she’s staying at SHIELD.”  

Tony ignored him as Hershal sat down in a spare seat. “What’s SHIELD paying you? I can pay you more. Also, you’d be the head of your division.” He said, leaning forwards to stare at her.

Hershal just grinned at him. “Come to the dark side, we have cookies?” 

“If “cookie” is a euphemism for awesome tech and better lab equipment? Sure.” He said. “Seriously, what does SHIELD have that I don’t?” He asked.

Coulson cleared his throat. “We have more data, and alien devices.” He said, and shuffled the papers in his hands.

Tony scoffed. “I have any data that SHIELD has.”

Coulson gave him a look. “No, you don’t. Even you can’t hack paper files and usb-drives.” He said, and Hershel grinned smugly at him.

Tony threw his hands in the air. “Fine, whatever. Debrief time, I guess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter I've pre-written, so everything else is going to be updated as I write it. If you haven't already noticed, the chapter titles are named after dances. I think it's a nice theme. Thank you all for reading!


	4. Barn Dance Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I assuming that it being an unwinnable fight will not deter you from engaging?” JARVIS asked.
> 
> Tony smiled grimly beneath the helmet. “Not a chance in hell, J.”
> 
> JARVIS gave a sound that might have been a sigh, a rush of static over the speakers. “Then good luck, Sir.”

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit!” Tony exclaimed, staring at the cloud of red dots that had just appeared on the radar. “JARVIS, please tell me that the satellites just malfunctioned and there’s  _ not  _ a mass of possibly hostile spaceships that just entered the solar system.” He asked, mentally crossing his fingers.

“All satellites are fully functional. Should I prep the armours?” JARVIS asked, apologetic. 

Tony hit a button, and alarms went off all around the tower, and, if JARVIS was doing his job right, at SHIELD. “Fuck yes, and alert me if those things so much as twitch. Are they Chitauri?” He asked, after a second. If he didn't ask, then he couldn't know. If he didn't know, there was still a chance it wasn't. Schrodinger's space army. 

“The energy signatures do not match the Chitauri. They do, however, match the energy signature of the barrier device.” JARVIS said, and the screen showed the matching energy signatures.

Tony stopped. “Then if they are hostile, we’re fucked.” He said, and the armour assembled around him.

“I assuming that it being an unwinnable fight will not deter you from engaging?” JARVIS asked.

Tony smiled grimly beneath the helmet. “Not a chance in hell, J.”

JARVIS gave a sound that might have been a sigh, a rush of static over the speakers. “Then good luck, Sir.”

\---

“And they’re just sitting there?” Steve asked, leaning over Tony’s shoulder to peer at the map of the solar system, complete with blinking red dots where the ships were stationed. They were trailing beside Jupiter, nestled in close to Ganymede. 

Tony nodded. “Yep. They have been for the past hour, and people are starting to notice. You can see Jupiter with the naked eye, and some of the moons with a decent pair of binoculars. With a mid-range commercial telescope, you could definitely see  _ that _ .” Tony said, and Jarvis helpfully brought up an image that was being broadcasted from the Keck observatory. 

Now that he could see it, the interconnected ships were definitely not Chitauri built, too sleek and practical, with large bright windows interspersed on the warm grey hull. There were no visible weapons systems on it, so either there really wasn't any, or their weapons were so advanced that they didn't even look like earth weapons anymore, like a slingshot to a missile.

They were so fucked if they decided to attack. Hell, they’d nearly been defeated by a  _ water storage device _ wielded by a kid who didn't even know the limits of the technology he was using.

Natasha was spinning a knife around her fingers, the flash of the metal almost hypnotising. “How do we know they’re still there? They could have cloaking mechanisms.” She said, eyeing the monitor speculatively.

Tony shrugged. “Well, if they do, there’s fuck all we can do about it. If the satellites haven’t picked up anything, we’re not going to know until we hit them. Or they hit us.” He said, and everybody in the room grimaced.  “Also, they obviously have FTL travel, and the speed-of-light delay means that all info from that area of space is 43 minutes behind. So, they could be on top of us while we’re still seeing them at Jupiter.”

Bruce rubbed at his eyes. “That’s… not good. Are you scanning for patches in Jupiter’s rings, in case they brought more ships than we can see?” He asked.

Tony scoffed. “Of course I am. So far, what we see is what we get. And I'm not liking what we’re seeing.” He said.

Everybody else nodded in agreement, and the room fell into silence once more.

\---

Tony was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't asleep, and if Steve honestly thought he would be, well that was his problem. 

He turned on his side and groaned. “JARVIS.”

The room stayed dark. “Sir, Captain Rogers is correct in making you rest. There is nothing else we can do until they make a move.” JARVIS said apologetically. “Even if sleep is not possible,” he continued, already anticipating Tony’s response, “You can still rest. If there is to be a fight, you will need it.”

Tony flung his and over his face dramatically. “JARVIS you fucking traitor.” He said though he knew JARVIS was right. 

“Sir…” There was concern in his voice. 

Tony sat up, his brow furrowed. “J? What’s wrong?” He asked, already swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

“NASA is contacting us, Sir. It appears to be urgent.” He said.

Tony raised his eyebrows. NASA, of course, had been one of the first agencies informed of the mass of alien ships around Jupiter. As of two hours ago, so did everyone else on the planet. There hadn't been any riots, so far, so that was good. 

He hopped off the bed, and grabbed the tablet by the bed that JARVIS had thankfully unlocked for him. “Put ‘em on. And let the others know.” He said, and the lights turned on as he headed to the common area.

The screen flickered to life, showing a harried-looking young man who gestured to someone off-screen. In the background, phones were ringing off the hook and all of the computer stations were occupied, despite the fact that it was one in the morning. 

Another man stepped in front of the screen. “Mr. Stark.” He said, and nodded respectfully. 

Tony rolled his eyes. He’d made it to the living room, and everybody else was already gathered there. With a gesture, he switched the call to one of the wall screens. “No need for formality. I’m guessing you’ve got something?” He asked.

The man on screen nodded. “We think the alien ship is contacting the Palici probes.” He said, blunt and to the point.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think that?” 

The man on screen nodded at his colleague. “Play it.” He said, and the intern pressed a few keys.

Right away, the air was filled with noise, a strangely melodic chittering sound. It continued for a couple seconds, and stopped. “This is one of the things they sent. Most of them we can’t open, but the couple we could had the fibonacci series, primes, and images of basic shapes. There was also images of what we think is their writing and number system, but we’re not sure. We can send everything over if you want a closer look.” He said, and gestured at someone off screen. 

Steve stepped forwards. “Thank you, Mr-?” 

“Orviati. Dr. Orvati. And it’s us who should be thanking you. Anything you need that we can help with, and you’ve got it.” Orvati said, with a staggering amount of sincerity. 

Steve nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Orvati. If you’re sent anything else, you know how to reach us. Have you contacted anyone else?” He asked.

Orvati looked behind him, and two others each at a computer gave him a thumbs up. “Yes. The UN, and SHIELD have been called. We thought it prudent to notify you as well.” He said.

Steve smiled. “Yes, it was. Thank you.” He said, and the call disconnected. 

Tony was already moving to one of the wall screens, where JARVIS had helpfully thrown up all the data NASA had just given them. As Dr. Orvati had said, most of the files were unopenable, and the ones that could be were exactly as he had said. 

There was more than one audio file, and Tony opened them one after another. Each contained more of the chittering sounds, which he assumed was their language. 

JARVIS took those, along with the writing, and began to run a decryption program on it. Tony pulled up some of the unopenable files, and began trying to force them open. When he opened them in a editing folder, it was mostly gibberish, at least to him, but one string of numbers gave him pause. It looked like coordinates for an image, telling the computer which colour to make which pixel on a screen, but there were three numbers, not two. 

He blinked, and quickly checked all the other unopenable files. Well, that was easy. “JARVIS, check to see if the holo tables can run these, yeah?” He said, already moving on to some of the other, pure number-based files. They’d sent along a system for that, at least. One blip, beside a squiggle. Two blips, beside a more circular squiggle, ect. JARVIS, being the best, had already translated it into human number systems.

He whistled. This math was  _ impressive _ . He was jolted out of his math-fueled haze by Bruce’s hand on his shoulder. “Tony-”

Tony cut him off by spinning around and gesturing wildly at the numbers on the screen. “Bruce, look at this. It’s a proof of FTL  _ without  _ using wormholes. J, send this to Foster, she’s gonna have kittens, Bruce-”

Bruce shook him slightly. “Tony, what’d you send to the holo tables?” He asked, and everyone else was staring at him.

Tony shrugged. “The unopenable files. I’m pretty sure they’re for holograms. JARVIS?” He asked, tilting his head towards the nearest camera.

“The files are indeed meant for hologram systems, yet not the ones we have.” JARVIS said. “I will continue to try to open them.”

Tony sighed. “Oh well. Anything else?” He asked.

“Agent Coulson wishes to know if a response should be sent.”

They all looked at each other. Steve looked up at the ceiling, because they  _ all _ did that when addressing JARVIS. Privately, he loved it, loved that his creation had people other than him that treated him as a person. “We should send a response. Tony said you were trying to rig up a translator?” He asked.

JARVIS sighed.  “Yes. Trying, and unfortunately, failing.” He said dryly. “Unfortunately, I, like my creator, are not much for languages.”

“Yeah well, if i’d’ve known were were going to be translating alien languages, I would’ve done something about that.” Tony said, still studying the screen full of math. He spun around. “We should respond in the same way, pi, primes, and some other proofs, and samples of our language.” He said.

Natasha raised her eyebrow at him. “Which language?” She asked. 

Tony grinned. “All of them.” He said, spreading his hands. “J-”

“I am using the spoken greetings from the golden record, and compiling the mathematics. Do you want me to send it to NASA when I am done?” JARVIS asked, sounding smug.

Tony grinned. “Go for it, and tell us when the Palici probes have got it.” He said, and turned back to Bruce. “Wanna look at this math while we wait?”

Bruce rolled his eyes, and accepted.

\---

45 minutes later, the assemble alarm started blaring. Bruce and Tony were jolted out of their math-induced haze. They glanced at eachother, and rushed for the door, Bruce up to the quinjet and Tony down to the workshop to get the suit.

“JARVIS, what’s going on!?” Tony asked, tearing around the corner and into the workshop.

The armor assembled around him. “There are ships appearing over Iceland. They were shielded until a minute ago.” JARVIS answered, bringing up the appropriate scans on the HUD. 

Tony swore, already rocketing out and up to fly beside the quinjet. “Are they attacking?” He asked, eyes still darting across the scans of the ships. They had  _ chosen  _ to show themselves. If they didn't want to be seen, they wouldn't have been, that much was clear. The only thing that wasn't was whether the blatant display of their forces was a threat, or a gesture of peace. 

They had landed in a wide glacial valley, from the looks of it, with a river winding between the basalt cliffs. The Icelandic SHIELD team was already blocking the roads into the area. Tony hoped he wouldn't have to deal with any of the agents. The Icelandic SHIELD team was… weird. Weird would be the best descriptor, and that was from someone who dealt with weird on a daily basis. It probably had something to do with living on top of the literal gateway to hell, which apparently was not as mythical as previously thought. 

They were also broadcasting continuously, a simple message played over and over in beeps that were probably their version of morse code, the melodic chittering that was their language, and a different, more human-sounding language. JARVIS was pretty sure that it was the same message, but they were still having no luck on actually translating it.

The alien ships were clustered in a loose semi-circle, the panels on the hulls shimmering, like a mirage dancing over the surface. Tony’s first thought when he touched down on the opposite side of the river from them was, strangely, owls. The ships looked like owls, sleek and dangerous and designed for stealth, and he was pretty sure he was the unlucky vole in this case. 

The quinjet landed on his tail, setting down almost with Clint’s usual graceful and soundless landing, but placed next to the alien ships, it looked ungainly and clumsy. His team climbed down from the ramp, and Coulson immediately headed to the field set-up the icelandic division had going on. Tony and Bruce followed, JARVIS already piggy-backing on the sensors they’d set up, feeding the data back to the suit and cross-referencing it. From the looks of things, there was a whole tent dedicated to translating the language. Tony gave JARVIS permission to go help them by sharing his work, and giving them access to the algorithms and massive server farms he was using to run them. Hopefully, with Tony’s and SHIELD’s best and brightest working together, they could figure something out.

It looked like the river was going to be a temporary border, and SHIELD had already set up a bridge crossing it, a compact foldable design that could be used as a wide variety of useful objects. 

Nothing happened for far too long, long enough that the sun should’ve set, but because it was iceland, it had only faded to twilight. 

Some more SHIELD trucks had rolled up, and makeshift bunks were being made for the translators and scientists, who Tony was pretty sure would have to be physically pried away from their work. 

Not that Tony blamed them. Steve was already trying to not-so sneakily herd him back into the quinjet, which Clint was camped on top of with a pair of binoculars, keeping watch on the alien ships. He’d collected a bucket of rocks and taken it up with him, and was steadily throwing them to build a pyramid. It was impressively pyramid-shaped, especially since most of the rocks were different sizes, and it was about 10 meters away from the quinjet. And it was twilight. 

Thor was sitting on a boulder, feet resting in the river, starring northwards at the ghostly green aurora. He was unusually subdued, and Tony could see the years bowing his shoulders. Sometimes, it was too easy to forget that Thor was a god, a prince, a warrior.  Too easy to not look beyond the pop-tart eating, ballad-singing golden retriever with a hammer, and see the to-be-king that he was. Too easy, even for him, who knew all about using reputation and appearance as a weapon.

Tony shook his head, and turned back to the screen in front of him. So far, they were just sitting there, broadcasting the message over and over and over. The SHIELD team had appropriated anything with a screen and a speaker, and were furiously skyping with some of the best linguists they could find.  Tony couldn't understand most of what they were talking about, half of which was because while he did know a couple languages fluently, but he was by no means a linguist, and the other half was because there was about 10 languages being spoken at any given time. Lots of them were still wearing pajamas and clutching large mugs of coffee, exhaustion and strain and determination shared on all their faces.

Of course, so did everyone here. The closest town didn't have a starbucks, but there were a couple coffee shops that were probably getting more business than they’d ever had. The coffee was dark and bitter, fresh roasted with added chicory root. It was… interesting. Certainly kept you awake, though, and right now, that was all Tony cared about.

Steve, apparently, also cared about the coffee, for entirely the wrong reasons, and was fruitlessly trying to block the intern that was darting around handing out refills. Tony was going to make sure that that intern got a raise. He stepped neatly under Steve’s outstretched hand, dropped a coffee cup on the table beside Tony, who gave him a distracted thumbs up, and continued on his route. There was another intern passing out energy drinks, which Tony had declined. They made his hands shake, which he  _ really _ didn't need right now. The linguists, however, had no such qualms. 

Tony was staying at least a tent away from the linguists at all times, mostly due to the racket, and because they were slowly appropriating any whiteboard or laptop that came within grabbing distance. His computer was going to stay on the engineering side of things, thank you very much. 

Tony reached for his fresh coffee cup, only to grasp at empty air. He looked over, confused, at the place where his coffee should’ve been. He glared at Steve, who was clasping his hands behind his back, looking around innocently, eyes everywhere except at him. 

Tony narrowed his eyes, and crossed his arms. “Steve.” He said, and Steve gave him a “who, me?” look. “Give me back my goddamn coffee.” He said, and held out his hand.

Steve leaned far-too casually against one of the folding tables, and held both his hands up. “What coffee?” He asked, and his grin was just a little too wide for Tony to believe him. Also, he could see the cup reflected on the whiteboard behind him.

Tony just raised an eyebrow. “If you honestly think that taking away a single cup of coffee is going to get me to sleep, you are seriously underestimating how much I  _ need  _ to be working on this.” He said, still holding out his hand for the coffee.

Steve sighed, and obediently passed him the coffee. “I know you didn't sleep yesterday, either. I’m just concerned.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe you should be a little less concerned about me, and a little more concerned about the potentially hostile alien army that is sitting a stone’s throw away from us.” Tony snapped, turning back to the computer screen. Defence. He was working on defence. Something that might give them half a chance if not fighting wasn't an option.

Steve’s response was cut off by an uproar from the language tents, as the entire group seemed to spontaneously  _ burst into song _ . There was a couple notes, and then arguing, and a couple more, interspersed by claps and whistles. Ignoring the lack of complexity, it sounded remarkably like the alien’s language, the same odd-half pitch shifts, that sounded slightly wrong.

The… melody, if you could call it that, petered off into bouts of arguing again, and the whiteboards, already covered in a rainbow of writing, gained several new colours. They certainly seem excited, with whatever they had figured out. He hoped it was something good. Something that would fix this.

Tony glanced at Steve, and they shared a confused look. Tony shrugged and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Whatcha got!?" He called, hopefully loud enough that someone in the group would hear him. 

The coffee intern came back around, having avoided the linguistics tent, probably wisely, for the time being. "They think that the melody is the language." He said and passed Steve a paper cup, probably filled with hot chocolate or tea. Yeah, the coffee intern was definitely getting a raise. Steve took the cup, seemingly more on instinct than anything else, and did not seem to know what to do with it other than that. Tony would've been sympathetic, but with Steve holding the cup, it gave him the perfect opportunity to steal his coffee back. He was pretty sure that Steve let him take it, but that was not going to dull his victory even a little.

Tony furrowed his brow. "So... It's got layers. The pitch and the words are both essential to the meaning." He said, even though the coffee intern was long gone, and Steve was the only one who could hear him.

Steve nodded, looking confused with both his newly acquired drink and whatever he could hear of the linguist's conversation. 

Tony swore, and turned back to his computer screen, and opened the window containing the algorithm that JARVIS was running to translate the language. "JARVIS, is that right? It's really layered?" He asked, and swore again when JARVIS replied in the positive. Goddamnit, he had to change the entire thing. Great. Just great. 

He really hoped that there wasn't going to be any other surprises in the language, because two layers was one thing. If there were three or more, they might not even be able to find all of them.

Language was fucking hard. Seriously, at least coding languages and encryptions actually made  _ sense _ . 

He and JARVIS worked on the code for the next hour, ignoring further outbursts from the translator tent unless they were actually useful, which they mostly weren’t. 

After an hour, Steve dragged him away to eat with the others. The food had been brought in from town, and consisted of fish, lamb stew, and bread. The sun was casting long shadows around the valley as it arced above the horizon, and someone had set up heating lamps that groups of people were sitting around like a campfire.

If it weren’t for the constant threat of the ships across the river, it would’ve been nice, but Clint still had his binoculars hanging around his neck, and everyone was still in full uniform, even Tony, though he’d put on pants and a shirt over the undersuit, and the suit was standing at attention nearby, JARVIS keeping watch.

No one spoke much while they ate, until Clint spotted something coming over the edge of the valley. The response was immediate, every single agent and scientist getting into their positions. Tony’s scanners couldn't reach that far, and unfortunately, no one had thought to bring a telescope. No one wanted to risk flying out out to it, especially if it was more of the aliens trying to flank them. 

They waited in tense silence, Clint staring unblinkingly through the binoculars, until he barked out a laugh, breaking the stillness. “False alarm, guys. It’s a herd of sheep.” He said, dropping the binoculars beside him and rubbing his eyes.

The tension evaporated instantly. Steve rolled his eyes. “Thor, can you go and tell the shepard this probably isn't the best place to have his sheep?” He asked, standing up and collecting everyone’s bowl and taking them all to the small sink station that was set up.

Thor nodded, and was off, his hammer dragging him behind it. One of these days, Tony was going to figure out how the fuck it worked. Of course, he couldn't just steal it into the lab like he could with the shield or Clint’s bow, due to the fact that Thor was the only one who could pick it up. One day, though. That hammer was going to get thoroughly scienced. 

Everyone went back to work, grumbling about their supper being interrupted, but not making too big of a fuss.

Until Tony, the only one of them facing towards the river and the alien ships, spotted that one of them was  _ moving _ . Not by much, and not quickly, but it was definitely moving, rotating to face where the herd of sheep were still on the hillside. Slowly, every single ship was pointed at the hills.

At once, the tension was back in full force, everyone watching with bated breath to see what would happen.

One of the scientists monitoring the broadcast shouted, “They've changed the transmission!” And everyone clustered around the nearest computer.

They waited with bated breath for the computer to translate the transmission into something they could hear and see. The image and the audio loaded, and Tony nearly laughed out loud. There was a picture of the sheep on the hillside, magnified and clear, even in the shadow. The audio was shorter than the other transmissions, most likely one word. 

Tony was pretty sure that when translated, that word would be “what.” 

One of the linguists broke the stunned quiet. “I don’t think they know what a sheep is.” She said, saying what they were all thinking. She turned towards Coulson, who’s usually perpetually unbothered expression was slipping around the edges. “Should we send a response, sir?” 

Coulson glanced at the team, who nodded. “Yes. Verbal, and written.” He said.

Another linguist raised his hand. “Who is going to say it?” He asked, glancing around at his colleagues. “I mean, someone has too.” He said, making it clear that he thought that it should be him, and nearly everyone in the tent had a gleam in their eyes, which probably meant bad news if the new voice of humanity wasn't picked fairly.

Tony spoke up, cutting off the arguing that was no doubt going to start if  _ someone _ didn't get picked soon. “It’ll need to be in a bunch of different languages, as many as we can get, and it should be the same person for most of them so that pitch and accent stays the same.” He said, and everyone nodded uncertainly. “So, who here knows the most languages?” He asked.

There was a couple minutes of everyone comparing the languages they knew, and fighting about whether unused languages like latin, egyptian, and ancient greek should count, before there was 6 people left, who could all speak 25 languages a piece. 

Two of them were disqualified, due to the fact that lots of their languages were not very widely used. The other four were left arguing about who it should be, based on amount of people who used the languages, how useful the languages would be for learning others, and more mundane things like who’s voice was the nicest. 

It was looking like a fight might actually start soon, until Steve stepped up. “It should be JARVIS.” He said, looking around at everyone as if that should be obvious. “I mean, he knows  _ every _ language, and the recording won’t have any background noise in it.”

Tony blinked, but before he could reply one of the linguists, the one who brought the matter of who up, scoffed. “You want some program to be the voice of humanity?  _ It’s  _ not even a person.” He said, crossing his arms, and glaring around at everyone else, and seemed surprised when instead of righteous anger, of whatever else he was expecting, everyone else just looked very uncomfortable, or, in the case of the team and lots of the more senior agents, like they were considering where, exactly, his new asshole could go.

Steve stepped forward, glaring before Tony could even begin to plot revenge. “JARVIS is more a person than you ever will be, and  _ he  _ is not and  _ it.”  _ He snarled, and Asshole cowered under the fore of his glare. “In the future, if you even  _ have  _ one, I would recommend  _ not _ pissing off the people who can, and will destroy you.” He said. “And, if I were you, I would leave. Right.  _ Now _ .” He said, punctuating each word with a step forwards. 

The ex-agent fled, very wisely, in Tony’s opinion. JARVIS spoke up from the earpieces. “You do not need to defend me, Captain Rogers. I can fight my own battles.” He said, and Steve’s glare softened.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we know buddy. Thing is, you shouldn't have to waste any processing power on sacks of shit like that.” He said, and it was clear that pretty much everyone else agreed with him.

Steve glanced around. “Anyone else have any objections?” He asked, and slowly, everyone, even the people who were just arguing for the job, began nodding and shrugging. Most of them, it seemed, were not in it for themselves, but because they wanted the best choice for everyone, and thought that they might be it, and now that there was someone else better qualified, they didint put up much of a fight.

Steve turned to Tony, as if asking permission. He felt a lump in his throat, and swallowed it down. “It’s your choice, J.” He said, voice  a little rough and choked but so, so proud. 

“I would be honoured.”  JARVIS replied, in the same awed note he’d had when he first realized that Tony hadn't put any restrictions on him, the same gratefulness he’d had when he’d been introduced to the internet, the same emotion that he’d had when he’d flown with Tony for the first time. 

And… That was it. JARVIS sent the response, the word for sheep in more than 4 dozen languages, and they waited. It was surprisingly anticlimactic, and in the time since it was sent, Thor came back, and the shepherd herded his sheep back over the hill. 

They didn't have to wait long. The ships turned back to pointing at the SHIELD setup, and, for the first time, one of the doors opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Palici probes do not exist in real life, but I needed something by Jupiter, and there wouldn't be any real-life probe there in the time frame this fic exists in. There are 2 of them, an orbiter and a lander, both around/on europa.  
> I figured that either the chitauri would scare humanity away from the stars forever, or jumpstart a new space age. I chose the latter. In my mind, SI, NASA (which, in this universe, is now the National Alliance Space Agency, and is no longer US-centric) and SHIELD work very closely with each other.  
> Language is hard, ok, and translating an earth language into another earth language is much, much easier than trying to figure out alien languages with no context.  
> I really, really want to know how allspeak works. I think that it being some sort of subconscious telepathy makes sense.  
> I really hoped you like this chapter, and the next one should be coming soon!

**Author's Note:**

> So, fun fact, as I was writing this I realised that, hey, I didn't actually know Natasha's birthday. So I looked it up. And couldn't find it. Due to her backstory, she might not know it either. So, angst.


End file.
